Thursday, July 31, 2008

Don't Mess With The Crazy Pregnant Lady

I am now officially home on modified bedrest, which means I can now focus on the more important things in life -- daytime television and blogging. Not that my life is without adventure, though...

I was put on bedrest (and taken off work on disability) due to a condition called Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (or pubic symphysis separation, or pubic symphysis dysfunction) -- I simply like to call it Evil Crotch Pain (um, yeah, I've given up on that whole not complaining thing). It doesn't affect the baby, but it basically means that my pubic bone is separating more than it should, causing me excruciating pain when I do anything but sit still in my recliner. My husband is now in the position of having to do everything -- cooking, cleaning, taking care of the cats, etc., and I have to say that I am really impressed at how he's risen to the occasion.

Lately, I feel like I'm wound so tightly I'm ready to spontaneously combust -- it all started with the earthquake a couple of days ago. I live only about 15 miles from the epicenter, and we didn't sustain any damage, but not a single person in my family called to see if the pregnant lady was okay (except for my husband). I was fine (although after taking cover in the doorway I felt like that woman on those old "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials), but you would think someone would think, "Hmmm...she's 9 months pregnant...maybe we should just call and check in." I don't think it would have bothered me so much had I not found out later that other family members were doing things like calling home to see if their large screen televisions had made it through with no damage(!)

This morning, I was sitting on the sofa and I heard some strange noises in the kitchen. Both of my cats ran in and stopped in front of one of my kitchen cabinets in particular. I heard some scuffling, some scratching, and something trying to get out of the cabinet. I freaked. I mean it sounded big. The adrenaline hit, I grabbed both cats and bolted up the stairs into what will soon be the baby's room. Keep in mind that stairs are no easy feat for me with the SPD -- it usually takes me 20 minutes or so to get upstairs to the bedroom. I have no idea how I did it.

Well, it turns out, I can't get hold of my husband, so I do the only reasonable thing -- I call my family across the country. They all think the situation is much funnier than I do -- especially the part about me not actually seeing the animal intruder before going upstairs. Since I left my laptop downstairs with the scary animal, my sister was kind enough to try and locate animal trapping services for me on the Internet even though she lives over 3,000 miles away. Of course, I'm still barricaded in the room, I have to pee (and I'm worried that the cats will have to pee at some point), and I'm pissed at my husband for not being reachable only a day after the doctor tells me I can go into labor any day now!

After about an hour, I try my husband again. I find out he's in a meeting and ask reception if they can pull him out due to an emergency at home (I did think to tell them to tell him it had nothing to do with the baby). They pulled him out of the meeting and he called -- by that point, I was near hysterical. I told him he had to come home and do something with the gigantic animal hiding in our kitchen cabinets (it was, of course, gigantic by now).

He came home, checked all the cabinets and left them open so he could bring me downstairs and actually show me that it was all my imagination. He determined that what I was hearing was an echo coming up through our kitchen cabinets from the tile work our neighbor was doing next door. I guess I was lucky that he was laughing about the whole thing (especially since I had him pulled out of a meeting to come home for all this), but I still wasn't convinced. He went back to work, leaving me standing in the middle of the kitchen wielding a large broom.

A short while later, the phone rang. It was a recording from our mortgage company (who shall remain nameless), telling me it was urgent and I needed to call an 800 number immediately. I've been receiving these calls daily, at all hours, and up until today I had just assumed they were trying to sell me something. Well, still fueled by the adrenaline from the morning, I finally called them to demand they stop calling me every day. They couldn't pull up my account without my account number (my husband had it, and I couldn't get up off the sofa to look), but the woman on the phone told me they would not be calling to sell me anything, and that the only reason they would call every day was because we owed money on our mortgage. I told her it was ridiculous, that we had never even made a late payment and, further, that we have automatic debit from our account. She said so long as our account was "delinquent," we would be receiving the calls. I yelled at her (something about me being on bedrest and her sending me into preterm labor) hung up the phone, and realized I was standing in the middle of the kitchen with a broom to fight off the giant rat or whatever it was, arguing with the mortgage company, all while literally barefoot and 9 months pregnant -- I had become that woman.

I called my husband again (who was still giggling about the "animal" -- he asked if I was still holding the broom -- I didn't tell him I was). He called the mortgage company, and we found out that one of their other customers (one that was delinquent in their payment) had our phone number listed as their own (they put in our number, and both of us came up). Mystery solved!

In any case, I told my husband how I felt like such the psychotic, hormonal pregnant woman waiting for this baby to come and it was his suggestion I blog about it. I confessed I hadn't blogged in a long time. I guess I'm back...

Just in case any of you were interested in my progress -- here is me at 32 weeks (even though I'm now at 35)...